Ignorance, knowledge, and Supreme Wisdom

ज्ञान एवम् विज्ञान। ज्ञानी एवम् विज्ञानी साधु।

Ignorance, knowledge, and Supreme Wisdom

"The jiva at first remains in a state of ignorance.  He is not conscious of God, but of the multiplicity.  He sees many things around him.  On attaining Knowledge he becomes conscious that God dwells in all beings.  Suppose a man has a thorn in the sole of his foot.  He gets another thorn and takes out the first one.  In other words, he removes the thorn of ajnāna, ignorance, by means of the thorn of jnāna, knowledge.  But on attaining vijnāna, he discards both thorns, knowledge and ignorance.  Then he talks intimately with God day and night.  It is no mere vision of God.

"He who has merely heard of milk is 'ignorant'.  He  who has seen milk has 'knowledge'.  But he who has drunk milk and been strengthened by it has attained vijnāna."

Thus the Master described his own state of mind to the devotees.  He was indeed a vijnāni.

 

MASTER (to the devotees): "There is a difference between, a Sādhu endowed with jnāna and one endowed with vijnāna.  The Jnāni Sādhu has a certain way of sitting.  He twirls his moustache and asks the visitor, 'Well, sir! Have you any question to ask?' But the man who always sees God and talks to Him intimately has an altogether different nature.  He is sometimes like an inert thing, sometimes like a ghoul, sometimes like a child, and sometimes like a madman.

"When he is in samādhi, he becomes unconscious of the outer world and appears inert.  He sees everything to be full of Brahman-Consciousness; therefore he behaves like a ghoul.  He is not conscious of the holy and the unholy.  He does not observe any formal purity.  To him everything is Brahman.  He is not aware of filth as such.  Even rice and other cooked food after a few days become like filth.

"Again, he is like a madman.  People notice his ways and actions and think of him as insane.  Or sometimes he is like a child-no bondage, no shame, no hatred, no hesitation, or the like.

"One reaches this state of mind after having the vision of God.  When a boat passes by a magnetic hill, its screws and nails become loose and drop out.  Lust, anger, and the other passions cannot exist after the vision of God.

"Once a thunderbolt struck the Kāli temple.  I noticed that it flattened the points of the screws.

"It is no longer possible for the man who has seen God to beget children and perpetuate the creation.  When a grain of paddy is sown it grows into a plant; but a grain of boiled paddy does not germinate.

"He who has seen God retains his 'I' only in name.  No evil can be done by that 'I'.  It is a mere appearance, like the mark left on the coconut tree by its branch.  The branch has fallen off.  Only the mark remains."

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 9 March 1884